Man fined for East End anti-gay stickers

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Hasnath sounds as thick two short planks. I wonder does he fit the category of ‘special needs’? His argument certainly does; But I just put up stickers, I didn’t harass or swear at anybody or anything.

Unfortunately I fear he is both guilty (of planting the stickers and thus the public order offence) and the scapegoat of something more significant and organised. That said, I don’t see any clear and categorical evidence to substantiate my fears.

I am concerned that I am missing something as I recall that shortly after the BTP announced that the man had been charged with public order offences there was public comment here on PN that indicated the CPS were considering bringing in charges of an offence of inciting homophobia – what happened to this?

WTF – Fined?
So the price to stir up homophobic hatred is “£100 plus £85 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.”
And the lesson here is….?
So when will it be reported again that these posters are being put up again?
Verdict:-
Punishment – Hardly
Justice – What a joke
Result – Expect more posters.
Heaven forbid should people put on A Gay poster up!!
Or anti Muslim poster.
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I wonder if Mohammed Hasnath was represented in court by the likes of Terry Stewart or Rebecca Shaw of Rainbow Hamlets?!!

“But he wasn’t charged with inciting homophobic hatred …”
Thank you, Exactly my point!
We got a cheap verdict because judges, lawyers, CPS, police really couldn’t be bothered but because such a fuss was made they had to look like they were doing something but that something turned out to be nothing!

I would agree with all but one point in your argument. Its definitely a watered down conviction (the verdict of the charge made was factual – whether he was guilty or not of the offence charged by prosecution (police/CPS)).
We can’t criticize the court as they did not choose the charge that was to be tested in the court.
The police and CPS have let down both the LGBT and the wider communtiies of Tower Hamlets – shame on them

The criminal justice system certainly failed us – magistrates courts would not prefer a charge of such significant difference if not brought to them by the prosecution. As much as the system failed – we can not blame the court.

The fact remains, had this hate campaign been against Muslims in the area that said person would rightly be plastered all over the nation press who would have torn his or her life apart piece by piece, branded an extremist, charged with incitement.
It would Never have been left til a fuss had been made because no doubt the group concerned would have had protests and made themselves visible from the start and the criminal would have had a very hefty fine or possibly a light jail sentence.
Police would have acted striaght away.
The ‘criminal justice system’ has just made us a laughing stock.
The Police only acted because we eventually made our voices heard and the result is a double standard sentence that basically lets people know that homophobic posters are wrong but no Really worth bothering with.

The Police have come across as not really bothered then tell us the reason homophobic crimes rates are increasing is because people are reporting them then clearly are shown treating homophobic crime as a mere nuisance they can only be bothered with it a certain number of people push them to.
This may have damaged some confidence in reporting homophobic crime esp in an area where such crime is on the rise.
Absolutely shameful.

I wholeheartedly agree with your comments condemning the police and CPS in this matter, although I do wonder if there is a bigger plan from the police that we do not know about … in relation to this specific case …

I do also think that there have been some cases of community intimidation of Muslims in various locations around the UK – some of which have led to media attention and some which have not.

Purely because we see a case of Muslim intimidation in the media that appears to have significant public outcry and possibly a more suitable penalty applied and then see an LGBT issue which is not so vociferously supported by either the media or (apparently) by the criminal justice system does not make this the norm in either instance.

I do wholeheartedly agree that the outcome in this case (at least so far and totally if this is the end) is wrong, unjustifiable and sends entirely the wrong message to both the LGBT communities and those who wish to abuse us.

£2.85 for every poster with it’s message of menace and hatred, a bargain , he should have been fined £100 plus £85 costs and a £15 victim surcharge for every one of those offensive posters and bound over to keep the peace he and his accomplices are probably laughing at how easy we are and how they have gotten away with it , when will we stop playing the VICTIM and get serious about these assaults on our integrity as human beings ?

Except he wasn’t charged with putting up the 70 stickers, only the ones on TfL property (Bow Church DLR station, some buses stops and a bus). He could still be charged for putting up other stickers around East London if concrete evidence, like the CCTV at Bow Church, can be found to link him. Probably works out at about £10-£20 per sticker

Interesting, now I might be being cynical here … but this investigation was led by British Transport Police – who would be interested in TfL premises. Did the Met put the same effort into tracking down CCTV and supporting the community as BTP did?

I don’t know. Unofficial grapevine says the investigation isn’t over. If that is true it could mean either, Met isn’t putting as much effort and/or resources into investigation, or Met is trying to gather stronger evidence needed to bring about more serious charges.

Although I do have a smidgen (not much) of sympathy with BTP if we look at 3 offences in isolation on TfL premises. That could be perceived as not being part of a bigger picture and an isolated act and thus warrant a weaker charge.
However, a casual observer might say that the two forces could have jointly investigated what appeared to be linked offences and sought a more co-ordinated solution. After all this impacts massively on the community relations strategy of both the Met and BTP and has potential to be extremely damaging if they get it wrong – which they appear to so far.
Maybe the BTP charges were to make it appear that they were doing something (to appease the LGBT communities) or make it appear the investiagtion was over in the hope offenders would be less cagey etc. in the hope more certain serious offences could be identified.

Fined £200 for that? Is that all?
So I’m assuming if we went fly posting stickers around our local neighbourhoods with the words “Jew free zone” or “Black free zone” or “Muslim free zone” we’d just be fined a weeks wages on mimimum wage and told not to do it again?
That’s about the most insultingly token sentance they could’ve dished out.

Not sure about “Jew free”, if one looks at some of the comments by unionists and influential ‘liberal’ people on them, but “Muslim free”, hell, I’d be surprised if the person still had all fingers and toes by the end of the day.

really? I’ve lived in the East End for years and there have been hateful anti-moslem posters and graffiti appearing on and off in my neighbourhood, which is largely Sylhetti, with very little ever done about it.

What utter rubbish. I’ve lived in the east end for 20 years. And I’ve never once seen an anti-muslim poster. Since you claim to live there and have seen so many, why don’t you provide some links to newspapers/muslim websites reporting these facts. Most people I know have just quietly packed up and left the east end. That’s how civilised people deal with living amongst invaders with whom they have nothing in common.

I don’t live in the East end. I only occasionally visit. I have seen anti-Muslim posters in Hoxton and Bethnal Green – so if I have seen them then it would suggest they are more prevalent than you portray

the courts heard the charge and fined within the normal guidelines – he’s a low earner and he pleaded guilty so got reductions for both these things. Would everybody who is moaning want special laws with special extra high fines for crimes with homophobic origins? Everyone speculating on here didn’t hear the evidence – it is suggested he was a pawn in a bigger game. Only those in court know how true that is.

You are all forgetting the lovely and most respected side effect of this poster parade- the real, small thou, but real parade that happened after all. Hasnath or who else is behind him brought out good in us. We talked here, we discussed and fought. Some people in East London actually had guts to march for their rights. Our rights. We won. Thanks to extremists. We need to be visible to exist :)

Thank you Mark. We create our own reality after all. What goes around comes around. All those “Oprah hours” paid off at the end :P Fighting hate with pride and visibility is what we should learn from black community.

Absolutely – there would be a transparent and fully made out offence of inciting homophobic hatred if that could be established. Are the BTP or Met investigating this avenue – I don’t know for sure, but sincerely I doubt it.
Shame on them

I would argue the symbolism of burning the Koran could be taken as threatening an entire community too

I think both fines are cheap for the reality of both offences undertaken

The problem here is a mix of the CPS being weak and pursuing the weakest charge open to them either because it is winnable, expedient, cheaper, political reasons or due to simple incompetence of the prosecutors making decisions – and of weaknesses in the deterrent sentences that are available in the sentencing guidelines.

I have news for Mr Hasnath. The prophet is dead, allah doesn’t exist, and the secular West, with its majestic arsenal of technology and force, will one day in the near future render the virus of Islam into nothing more than a bad memory.

Your views are precisely what fuels Islamist extremism. If we threatened the Christian and Jewish religions in the way that we threaten the ‘virus’ of Islam you would be witnessing the activities of a lot more Christian and Jewish terrorist organisations. I agree with the separation of religion from politics and with challenging reactionary religious leaders who preach violence and hatred. But to threaten the wholesale destruction of someone’s religious beliefs and practices, especially when the overwhelming majority of muslims are battling against terrorism and extremism, is to pour petrol on the fire of terrorism and to give terrorists a justification for their vile acitvities.

I say this as a humanist, secularist and atheist who fully agrees with increasing secularisation and the right to challenge all religions.

I’ve met many open-minded, homo-friendly muslim men and women as I’ve met many homophobic and mysogenistic westerners.

Shock horror.

I’m a born and bred cockney and very proud of that fact. I grew up in Bethnal Green and Stepney and went to a school which was 97% Bengali. Did I have an issue – no. Did they? No – and I came out in school.

I can understand that people are upset by the special treatment that many perceive ethnic minorites to get and in some cases, it is true. However, it seems there is more hate and danger from people like this dude up above than there is from some mythical religious fanatical army.

The EDL gay group has produced maps showing how East London is now a Gay Free Zone. 20 years ago there were 15 bars/clubs there – now there are 4 (and it is clear that at least one of those 4 bars will close within a year or two). Yet in Vauxhall there are now far more bars/clubs than 20 years ago. Gay people have left East London. It’s a fact. And who can blame them.

Vauxhall’s scene has increased because of the RVT and then Barcode. It’s always been a well known gay area and so this is a natural progression – just like what happened in Soho.

Also, in the East End the bars and pubs were closing down way before this all kicked off. It’s a shame that they have but then support and patronage of these places was cound to die off eventually for bigger and brighter areas.

By putting up homophobic stickers, defacing pictures of women and then being unable to understand what he did wrong, Hasnath has given a clear indication that he cannot cope with the society he lives in.

I fear that he will at some stage become so frustrated and appalled by the world surrounding him (and so easily manipulated) that he will explode – possibly quite literally – and do some innocent people real harm.

I agree with you. Perhaps not this particular man (and he is a grown man at 18 years old and fully aware of his actions) but someone will do something awful if this kind of hatred is being banded about within certain communitys and if this carries on it can only get worse.

Will Raiinbow Hamlet’s Jack Gilbert now be producing the ‘evidence’ that he claimed to Pink News he has in his possession:

“However, Jack Gilbert, the co-chair of LGBT forum Rainbow Hamlets, suggested that the stickers could be the work of the groups such as the English Defence League.
“We have evidence that they were very likely to have been produced by far-right sources in order to forment community tension,” he said.”

Actually they’re sell-outs. Give us an organisation which is going to look after us.

I don’t want a bunch of middle class, politically minded graduates with self-inflated egos who think moving to London is ‘cool’ and ‘trendy’ and have NO idea what the real London is like.

The kind of people who sit there over a dinner party and talk about the plight of the mis-represented while sipping on champagne and occassionally buying a cup of fairtrade coffee to ease their conscience.

The only organisation that is going to look after gay people from the threat of islamic fundamentalism is the EDL. Like it or lump it, that’s how it is. In 2006 Tatchell & gay muslims asked UAF to stop kissing the ass of the Muslim Council of Britain. The UAF ignored Tatchell (why would violent communists listen to a whinghing pacifist puffter?) Two years after the creation of EDL, the UAF is now issuing a poster saying “No to Homophobia – No to Islamophobia – No to Racism”. Without the EDL, the UAF would still be kissing the ass of islam. EDL has got the issue of islamic homophobia onto the national agenda. The liberal-left’s betrayal of gay rights, womens’ rights, animal rights, and children’s rights has been acknowledged across the western world. That is why the right wing are ascendant in Finland, Sweden, Holland, France, Spain, Canada, etc.

I agree Another Hannah.
Truth is they didn’t bother until a few made a fuss because of their lack of action.
Had it just been 1 or 2 people nothing would have been done, it was done to the public to remove these posters as it was.
The police in this case have shown nothing but double standards.
We now hear that homophobic crime in Tower Hamlets is on the up and what respect have people got of the police after this case?
Very worrying.
It comes to something when the Police in Tower Hamlets clearly need to be told the law that say homosexuality is NOT a crime but homophobia IS!

I’ve been on EDL demos where I’ve faced the police from different forces around the country. And I have to say, the Met are one of the most professional (West Midlands Police are far, far worse and institutionally corrupt e.g. prosecuting Channel 4 for making the undercover exposes of British mosques). I’ve spoken to police officers from the Met who not only know who Hizbollah is, but recognise their flags (mind you, I’ve spoken to others who did not know the difference between Hummous and Hamas). You lot betrayed gay rights by rounding on the people who tried to organise the East End Gay Pride. Don’t blame the police when they have been told for 20 years to treat muslims with kid gloves. The EDL has been pointing out the 2-tier justice system for years now. Wake up and smell the coffee – the rights of muslims in Britain are more important than those of any other group.

@ spanner – do you you propose that we do nothing? Homophobic attacks, both physical and verbal, will continue unabated as long as we, as a community, continue to turn the other cheek in the manner that you suggest. Yes, the kid is an idiot, but he is also a bigot whose been allowed to get away with a hate crime.

What Spanner is saying is if you learned to be less gay we wouldnt get attacked or murdered. Its always our fault as we shouldn’t be attracted to men. I wonder if he is catholic what he has is so deep seated its fundamental to his character though he insists its not

This turned out to be exactly what I expected, some kid that takes it on his shoulders to right what he sees as wrong. No big organisation, no conspiracies, no gas chamber rhetoric. The entire incident was a very big storm in a very small teacup.
‘
He didn’t get away with it, he was caught and sentenced according to statute. If you disagree with that sentence, take it up with the courts. He got much the same slap as a flyposter advertising a club. The law does not differentiate.

Spanner has no measure of the thing. The “kid” was not alone. And it is collusion on your part to call him a “kid”. The two lads who got banged up for killing Jamie Bulger were “kids”, but the doctrine of “dolly incapax” ensured they were legally responsible for their actions. The stickers apperared all over London (as far south as Twickenham). They were clearly the work of a much larger gang. The same stickers had appeared in London in October 2010, and in Nottingham in July 2010. These stickers are just acknowledging the reality in east London – gay people have been driven out of that area. What is far worse than these stickers are those mosques in Britain distributing documents saying “homosexuals must be killed”.

EDL supporter: “Spanner has no measure of the thing. The “kid” was not alone.”
If you have proof of this, then why are you withholding evidence? Go tell the police and get the real perpetrators arrested. Otherwise, if this is simply just another lame-brain conspiracy theory, I suggest you do the other thing and put a sock in it.
‘
Either put up or shut up.

agree – the crime was putting up silly stickers…….why is anyone relating this to attacking people in wheelchairs. Thet is serious crime and the courts deal with it accordingly. Silly stickers = a smallish fine. Attacking wheelchair bound figures = prison.
perhaps if we calmed down and called him a silly boy with silly stickers the damage to our community would be less – we might rise above it!

All of your hand-wringing and tautological arguments – these count for nothing.

FIGHT BACK.

You don’t have to belong to a righteous organisation such as the EDL or any other group. In fact it’s better to belong to none.

Be a lone wolf.

Act as a sole individual to do what you think is right to re-balance the hate and violence directed at us from these unspeakable creatures. Any action, no matter how small or seemingly ineffectual helps. Just make sure you do something, don’t sit around feeling powerless. We have so much power together as a group of individuals.

Jupiterray: “You don’t have to belong to a righteous organisation such as the EDL or any other group…Be a lone wolf.”
‘
That is precisely what this flyposter was. Just a loner with an axe to grind. It works both ways, sunshine.

No it doesn’t steer to that angle, JohnK. it includes the following reported remarks:

“Basically, some people just handed them to me so I just put them up. I didn’t say anything, it doesn’t say that I am going to punish them it just says what God says in the Koran.

“I wasn’t the one who made them, some people gave them to me and I only put up a few, there were hundreds of them up”

It doesn’t dispute them and the police seem to be remarkably unconcerned as to how the posters were produced and distributed and who else put them up. Anyone who imagines this is the work of one 18 year old alone is putting their head in the sand. Identical posters have already appeared last year in Derby and Nottingham. I suppose he put those up too?

Two days afrer his conviction the lad who put the stickers up attacked and robbed a 12 year old girl. Religion played no part in this and the police suggested that this was the kind of delinquent behaviour a gang member would indulge in. I guess the sticker incident was the same kind of thing – to prove his prowess in thug culture. This is a common practice with marginalised youth (black and white) who can easlily be duped into doing anything.

The level and hysteria of anti islamic/muslim comments on here are shocking. If we want an end to homophobia we shouldn’t fight it with islamophobia. Look at the anti gay comment and discuss it – just because ONE muslim person is homophobic don’t take it out on the entire religion. Just like if ONE gay does something negative should he be insulted or attacked for being ‘gay’ or his action? Racism, xenophobia, etc have NO place here.

Harry
It is only you that is seeing it as all Muslims which kinda makes you the Islamophobic one, not everyone else on this page who are commenting on this one person.
If you can’t see the individual don’t blame everyone for your own failings.

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